WESTPORT, CT — They were the types of caught-on-camera crimes that shock and frighten, even when viewed on TV or computer screens. Fast, violent, pre-planned actions with bad intentions that, if they had escalated, could result in brutality, or even deaths.
Westport experienced two such incidents over the past 15 months. A smash-and-grab burglary this past May at the downtown Lux, Bond & Green jewelry store, and a car hijacking in a private citizen’s garage in September 2023.
Both times the assailants wore masks and hoodies, making facial recognition virtually impossible. All the lawbreakers made clean getaways. And yet both crimes were solved by dogged Westport police officers and detectives, with support from other police departments.
Usually the public reads about a crime and perhaps sees it from a surveillance recording, then weeks or months later learns about arrests. Rarely are the details of how the perpetrators were hunted and caught released. Until now…..
Police Chief Foti Koskinas, Detective Bureau Commander Lt. Jillian Cabana and Lt. Eric Woods met with Westport Journal to explain in detail how investigations unfolded and the suspects were arrested. Through coordinated efforts with other law enforcement agencies, the use of surveillance footage, digital evidence, relentless investigation and utilizing tips and information provided by the public, detectives were able to identify and apprehend the suspects within days in both cases.
“These cases are still active; they’re not completely adjudicated,” noted Koskinas. “Some of the stuff is still pending, and there could potentially be more suspects.”
What follows is the narrative of the smash-and-grab crime. The carjacking story will be published in the coming days, followed by a conversation with the three principals focusing on how the Police Department has an impact on the community in a variety of ways.
Smash-and-grab recap
Two masked thieves wielding sledgehammers shattered display cases at Lux, Bond & Green on Main Street, stealing merchandise valued at over $100,000, Woods said. The burglary took place about 3:10 p.m. Thursday, May 9.
Employees retreated to the rear of the store, and there was no physical or verbal contact with the intruders, who fled from the store, entered a black BMW sedan and were seen heading on the Post Road East toward Fairfield.
In late May, the first of two suspects was arrested and charged with first-degree larceny, first-degree conspiracy to commit larceny, first-degree criminal mischief and first-degree conspiracy to commit criminal mischief. A second man was charged in late October.
So what happened in the time between when Westport police first learned of the crime and the subsequent first arrest?
Cabana: “First, we got a ton of information from dispatch. We want to know are they still on the scene? Have they fled? Is there a suspect description, direction of travel, all that stuff. Patrol officers generally respond first. If it’s determined that a detective is needed, then we respond.”
Woods: “We know that the time of day that this happened in downtown Westport, we’re thinking that there’s going to be a lot of witnesses. We don’t need everybody converging at the scene. We need to send officers to entrance and exit ramps at I-95 and the Merritt Parkway. So if you see a patrol car not going toward the crime scene, it’s not because they’re just driving away. We send people to different areas of town and go there to look for witnesses.”
Cabana: “And that actually happened in this case. Officers were working a construction job close to the Sherwood Island Connector and they announced a black BMW just flew by in the wrong lane. I think it was even on the wrong side of the road.”
Before continuing, the officers indicated they had confidence the investigation into this crime would be a successful.
Cabana: “It depends on the solvability factors. Do we have witnesses? Is there surveillance video? Are the items stolen serialized? Do we have a license plate? Do we have a good video of a suspect? The more of those we have increase our chances of getting it solved.”
Koskinas: “We had suspects with masks and gloves on. They arrived and left in a stolen car. That’s it. So right off the bat you probably don’t have physical evidence, you don’t have fingerprints. You’re not going to get DNA if there are gloves, and it’s very hard to identify somebody who’s masked. The car is going to give you very little, even if you get to it in a timely manner, because it’s a stolen car. So at face value, you’re looking at this as, what do we really have? It’s like we don’t have anything.”
But investigators maintained a confident mindset, knowing there were other avenues to travel.
Woods: “A witness took a picture of a car that was parked on Elm Street and he saw someone run into it. So we had that.” Video technology allowed the police to zoom in and read the license plate.
Cabana: “There was video store surveillance related to this type incident in other towns. And then there are technologies like traffic cameras that we’re able to use. The biggest break we had was we got the license plate from the suspect vehicle and learned that that plate had been stolen earlier in the day from a corporate park in Trumbull.
“Our law enforcement contacts in other towns, they have their own liaisons and sources of information. It can then be like, ‘Hey, we’re hearing on the street from one of our sources that it’s this person.’ We were contacted by the Jewelers Security Alliance, a private organization for jewelry stores. They heard about our case and said, ‘Hey, this is a pattern. There’s been eight similar incidents in Connecticut since the beginning of the year.
“We knew about one in Trumbull the month prior. There was one in Farmington and they were all the same. Two or three men run in, smash with hammers, grab stuff and take off. We got a tip from Waterbury, that they’re hearing it was Javon Thorbourne, who’d been arrested before (for smash and grabs). Then with our law enforcement techniques, we were able to place him in Trumbull when the license plate was stolen, and in Westport.”
Cabana explained that traffic cameras and personal data were factors, but did not want to get more specific. So, the case was basically cracked within 24 hours.
“He happened to be a convicted felon, and had an active warrant in Waterbury, so we teamed up with Waterbury police and the U.S. marshals and they went to his house to arrest him. They knew about our (jewelry store) larceny and what we’re looking for. When they arrested him, they patted him down and he had a Rolex tag from one of the watches that were stolen, a little lanyard that describes what the watch is, the number, the cost and other identifiers.”
Why would Thorbourne have the tag on his person?
Koskinas: “Well, there’s a couple of things. We can’t read into their minds. It could be complete carelessness. The other part is you don’t want to have the actual merchandise on you, but if you’re going to try to sell it, you need to have the identifiers of what you’re trying to sell. So if you’re going to call somebody who’s a high-value customer or potential high-value customer, they’re going to ask what you have. You don’t want to have the watch on you because it might get stolen, lost or damaged. But you can have the tag.”
This particular investigation went smoothly. Some do, some don’t, but a dead end for one lead means there will be another path for investigators.
Woods: “It was very fast. We don’t know what he was thinking or why he was thinking it, but our detectives have a playbook in which we’re going to go down this road until this play doesn’t work anymore or until it pans out for something. In this case, they followed this playbook, identified him and showed up at his house.”
Cabana: “When Waterbury police arrested him, they see the stuff that matches our crime. They take him and do their thing with him. He’s wanted on other stuff there. We get a search warrant and go back into his room. It was kind of like a flophouse. He was renting one room and we ended up finding more stuff to link him to the crime. They also seized a firearm and he’s a convicted felon and prohibited from possessing that. So Waterbury took that end of that. We do an arrest warrant because we have enough to link him here.”
There was another suspect left to track down. While it didn’t take long to identify who it was, it was extremely laborious to follow the guidelines necessary to make sure the arrest would hold up in court. One of the items seized from Thorbourne was his cellphone, but it took long hours to be able to utilize it.
Woods: “First the detectives have to write search warrants for each number, find judges, get judges to sign the warrants and execute the warrants. Then it’s hours upon hours upon hours … days of scrolling, not on the phone but on our software. You can imagine the amount of stuff they’re looking at. And they finally came upon a conversation.”
Cabana: “Two of our detectives are forensic digital examiners. They have all the best training. So they look through all the digital media that we get. This time we ended up finding conversations between Thorbourne and other players. We ended up talking to Waterbury again and got information about this one person, this name, this phone number, that’s actually Joshua DeJesus. And then we talked to someone who confirmed the cellphone number he’s been using. So we just build these puzzles.
“There were text conversations between Thorbourne and DeJesus. Planning it, talking about it, talking about where they’re going to sell stuff, talking about all that. So we know he’s in on it. And he fits the description of one of the people involved.”
Did the police talk to Thorbourne and try to get him to give up DeJesus to save them all the time of having to catch him themselves?
Cabana: “Oh, absolutely. We always try and interview, but we can’t force anybody to talk to
us. They interviewed him and he was just concerned about what happened to his money. Proceeds of crimes are also seized under the search warrant. So we seized a gold necklace and money that was in his house that we believe was probably from the sale of Rolexes. He was asking about the necklace. It was stolen from a smash-and-grab in another town. He wasn’t getting that back.”
Article provided by Michael Catarevas, who is a freelance writer for the Westport Journal.